Most Overrated NFL Teams After Peak Free Agency

NFL free agency is overhyped, which means the teams that appear to excel in free agency are often overhyped as well.

That's not the case with every team that signs a bunch of high-profile players, but every year there are a few that fill fans with inflated excitement before crashing and/or burning when those players take the field.

Last year, the 3-13 Jacksonville Jaguars fit the bill.

Which NFL teams are fans and the media overrating during this gap between peak free agency and the draft? Here are a handful, along with a few honorable mentions.

Just Missed the Cut

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Cleveland Browns

The Browns will win more than one game in 2017. The offensive line is a lot better, and they should improve on both sides of the ball in the draft.

But they still have far too many holes on D and far too few starting quarterback candidates to be considered a good football team. They're on the right track, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings had the worst running game in the league last season. Adding fading platoon back Latavius Murray doesn't make that unit good.

They also had one of the worst offensive lines in the NFL. Replacing bookend tackles Matt Kalil and Andre Smith with Mike Remmers and Riley Reiff doesn't make that unit good.

They made a lot of moves, but I'm not sure it amounted to much. And let's keep in mind that, unless things change dramatically with Teddy Bridgewater's injury status, Sam "Checkdown" Bradford is still their quarterback. 

New England Patriots

It's not that the Pats aren't the NFL's best team, but they did lose defensive starters Jabaal Sheard and Logan Ryan, they overpaid the average Stephon Gilmore, and they now lack first- and second-round draft picks.

Gilmore could be a bust, Brandin Cooks could be a bad fit, and don't forget that Tom Brady is old and Rob Gronkowski is injury-prone. The Pats look damn good on paper, but it's been more than a decade since a team last won back-to-back championships.

Baltimore Ravens

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A Baltimore Ravens team that experienced just one winning season in the last four years received strong reviews for its moves in the opening days of free agency. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the notion that a middle-of-the-pack team got better while losing two key offensive starters in right tackle Ricky Wagner and Pro Bowl fullback Kyle Juszczyk, especially because Wagner is the second quality offensive lineman to leave Baltimore in the last two years. 

The Ravens did offset those losses to a degree by signing safety Tony Jefferson, cornerback Brandon Carr and running back Danny Woodhead, but both Carr and Woodhead are on the wrong side of 30 and coming off seasons in which they were either injured or unreliable. 

I wouldn't expect either to make a major impact. 

Nobody has ever had a completely perfect or imperfect offseason, so I'm not suggesting the Ravens didn't do anything right. Jefferson is coming off a couple of strong years as part of a talented Arizona Cardinals defense and should make Baltimore even stronger in the defensive backfield. And bringing back defensive tackle Brandon Williams at an inflated price sure beats not having him back at all. 

But the bad outweighed the good, which is why the Ravens might be primed to take another step backward after increasing their win total from five in 2015 to eight in 2016. The AFC North is getting stronger, and the Ravens don't appear as though they're keeping up. 

Jacksonville Jaguars

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Everybody loves the Jacksonville Jaguars in March, April, May, June, July and August. And then they start playing football and we're reminded why free agency doesn't solve as many problems as is often expected. 

The Jaguars did get a lot better on defense by bringing in budding star cornerback A.J. Bouye along with veteran defensive end Calais Campbell. They also found a quality replacement (veteran Barry Church) for departed safety Johnathan Cyprien. Combine that trio with top 2016 offseason acquisitions Malik Jackson and Tashaun Gipson and throw in promising youngsters Dante Fowler, Jalen Ramsey and Myles Jack, and you have one of the most talented defenses in the league. 

On paper. 

That defense had most of that talent last year, and yet the Jaguars were still one of eight teams that surrendered 25-plus points per game. 

With the Jags, the best approach is to believe it when you see it. They're still hoping Blake Bortles can become their franchise quarterback despite the fact it appears he's regressed the last two years. They still need a cornerstone left tackle (they traded away tight end Julius Thomas for Branden Albert, but Albert is a stopgap at this point). And the running game still ranked 22nd last season despite the fact they invested a lot of draft and real-world currency in backs T.J. Yeldon and Chris Ivory. 

Eventually, the Jaguars are going to win more than five games for the first time since 2010. Some figure that'll happen with the defense finally looking healthy, strong and balanced in 2017, but we've yet to see how those pieces will work together, and there's no indication the league's eighth-lowest-scoring offense got any better in the offseason. 

Again, I'll believe it when I see it. 

Detroit Lions

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I've ranted so much about the overrated Detroit Lions this offseason that I can no longer risk traveling to Wayne County until the heat dies down. But here's one more for good measure. 

Most importantly, you have to realize the Lions were overrated to begin with after making the playoffs with a lot of luck in 2016. Detroit spent most of that season putting together last-second comebacks in order to beat mediocre-to-bad teams (Indy, Philly, Los Angeles Rams, Jacksonville, Chicago, Minnesota twice). It's not realistic to expect quarterback Matthew Stafford to once again put together an NFL-record eight fourth-quarter comebacks.

Based on Pro Football Focus grades, the Lions were the NFL's sixth-worst team last season, while Football Outsiders ranked them 27th based on DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average). They ranked dead last in the league with an opposing completion percentage of 72.7 and passer rating of 106.5, they averaged just 3.7 yards per carry, and their defensive sack rate of 4.5 was tied for the NFL's second-worst. 

The Lions have been crowned free agency winners in a lot of spots. And that's OK, because an argument can be made they upgraded the right side of their line by replacing guard Larry Warford with the older but more accomplished T.J. Lang and tackle Riley Reiff with the no more accomplished but slightly younger Ricky Wagner. 

I don't think Lang, who might not have a lot of tread on his tires coming off an eighth season which featured nagging injury issues, is necessarily better than Warford, and NFL.com graded Reiff as a better free-agent offensive tackle than Wagner. But even if we concede that those are significant upgrades, this Lions team had to get substantially better to compensate for the law of averages after a lucky season. 

I don't see it. The Lions entered the offseason looking like a team primed to take a huge step backward next season. Now, they look like a team primed to take a slightly smaller step backward. 

Sorry, honey. We won't be vacationing in Detroit this year. 

Dallas Cowboys

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Nobody is about to claim the cap-strapped Dallas Cowboys got better in free agency. After all, they lost four defensive backs—Brandon Carr, Morris Claiborne, Barry Church and J.J. Wilcox—who played a combined 2,645 snaps in 2016, they signed just one significant outside free agent (cornerback Nolan Carroll), and their insurance policy at quarterback is now a CBS color commentator. 

But according to OddsShark, nobody in the NFC has better Super Bowl odds than the Cowboys. That seems ridiculous considering the losses mentioned above, as well as the fact their two most important players—quarterback Dak Prescott and running back Ezekiel Elliott—risk suffering sophomore slumps without the ability to take the league by surprise.

The defense lacked bite to begin with. Now it's worse. The offense lacked experience. That hasn't changed. And now there's a target on their back. 

The highly competitive NFC East hasn't been won by the same team in back-to-back years since 2003 and 2004. The Philadelphia Eagles look better on paper, and the Washington Redskins and New York Giants were already contenders before experiencing strong starts to the offseason. 

The Cowboys will be lucky to win that division, let alone make a Super Bowl run. 

Seattle Seahawks

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Don't get me wrong, the Seattle Seahawks will still win the NFC West. But my dog and I could team up to win that division. Seattle has its sights set on the Super Bowl, and it has failed to advance past the divisional playoffs the last two seasons.

The Seahawks had to get better in order to keep up with the momentum-hogging Green Bay Packers and Atlanta Falcons in the NFC, and they didn't do that in significant fashion simply by adding running back Eddie Lacy and safety Bradley McDougald. 

The Seahawks aren't going anywhere until they make dramatic improvements to an offensive line that has become a hell of an Achilles' heel. Quarterback Russell Wilson was assaulted so frequently in 2016 that he could barely walk by the time October arrived. 

In pass-blocking efficiency, Pro Football Focus ranked Seattle's offensive line third-last in football. And among 20 quarterbacks who dropped back at least 180 times, Wilson ranked second in pressure percentage. He was sacked 41 times, tied for the second-highest mark.

No wonder he had the worst season of his career on paper. 

All they did to address that weak spot in free agency was add bust former No. 2 overall pick Luke Joeckel, who was one of the worst left tackles in football in 2014 and 2015, was moved to guard in 2016 and then almost immediately shredded his left knee. He isn't a long-term option and shouldn't be a short-term one, either. But incumbents George Fant and Garry Gilliam might still be worse. 

The only half-decent offensive lineman on the roster is center Justin Britt. That's a problem. And when you throw in that the defense—even with safety Earl Thomas returning—isn't what it used to be, it's hard to comprehend how this team could reach the Super Bowl.

Don't even get me started on a potential Richard Sherman trade.